Laser Turret
The Laser Turret is the rarest obtainable Emplacement in Iron Brigade, reliably dropping only from the Cathedral level in Rise of the Martian Bear, and even then only as a rare drop. It is also a rather difficult turret to make good use of, as it seems (to many players) to fall between the Machine Gun Turrets and Sniper Turrets. Statistics Looking directly into the barrel of this weapon may cause eyesplosions. Laser Turret: * Type: Heavy Turret * Damage: 15 (Level 1), 38 (Level 2), 71 (Level 3) * Range: 130 * Deployment Scrap Cost: 100 * Upgrade Scrap Costs: 150 (Level 2), 200 (Level 3) * Drops on: Cathedral (Rare) Tactical Usage At a glance, the Laser Turret looks staggeringly mediocre; its damage is decent (about the same as a machine gun turret of comparable level), but it costs a lot more to both install and upgrade. Moreover, lasers deal continuous damage-over-time, as opposed to burst damage like conventional weaponry. It also takes up a heavy slot. With this in mind, why take a Laser Turret? The answer is somewhat complicated, but the general gist is that stats don't tell the whole story with the Laser Turret. The Laser Turret has much better range than any Machine Gun or Flak Turret, does damage continuously, and perhaps most interestingly, like all laser weapons, has the ability to pierce things. This means that the Laser Turret's damage goes far higher when attacking groups. What this means is that the Laser Turret can not only reliably engage targets from a much better range than more-conventional turrets, but that when fighting groups, it can potentially damage multiple tubes simultaneously, more than making up for its relatively mediocre performance at lower levels. Topping it all off, it does far more damage than a Machine Gun turret when fully-upgraded. Additionally, because they do damage over time, Lasers are uniquely one of the only turrets for which it makes more sense to place more than one before upgrading than it does to simply upgrade one to max and be done with it - Because the damage for the laser Turret really only shines when it's upgraded heavily, clusters of them can reliably put out comparable firepower for less scrap invested. Lastly, Laser Turrets have another useful trait: Their beams are highly visible and easy to track, making keeping an eye on tube formations easy - especially given their longer range. Suffice to say, Laser Turrets are Knob killers par excellence, and do an excellent job against Aerials as well. Grouped and with upgrades, they can reliably put the hurt on any formation they can target, especially ones that tend to either group tightly up, or stay somewhat stationary, such as Tommys or Resistors. However, despite being excellent at killing knobs, Lasers don't generate scrap as do Super Shredder Machine Gun Turrets, the OTHER knob-killing turret. This amount of scrap denial really adds up over time, and the pro's and con's should be weighted carefully.Category:Emplacements